Chapter 10
“What do you mean, he has already broken his fast?”
Arabella stood near the foot of the bed as her maid carefully smoothed the coverlet, the morning light filtering through the tall windows and catching on the fine dust that lingered in the air.
The question had left her lips before she had quite thought to soften it, though her tone carried more curiosity than reproach.
“The Duke always takes his breakfast in his study, Your Grace,” the maid replied, dipping her head slightly as she adjusted the folds of a gown laid out across a nearby chair. “It is his habit.”
“Always?” Arabella echoed, reaching for the edge of the dressing table as she steadied herself, the memory of the previous evening pressing in before she could quite stop it.
The warmth of his hands, the quiet authority in his voice, the way her body had responded before her mind could catch up.
A flush rose swiftly to her cheeks, and she turned away under the pretense of inspecting the arrangement of her things.
The maid did not seem to notice. “Yes, Your Grace.”
Arabella cleared her throat and moved toward the washstand, dipping her fingers into the cool water as if that might steady her thoughts. “And my belongings,” she said, more briskly now. “You mentioned they have arrived?”
“They have, Your Grace. From Langford Estate. Everything has been placed in your dressing room.” A small pause followed before the maid added, “Your cat as well.”
Arabella’s head lifted at once. “Poppet is here?”
“Yes, Your Grace. She was seen not long ago.”
Relief settled into her chest more quickly than she would have expected. “Good,” she said, a softer note entering her voice despite herself. “Very good.”
She finished dressing with more haste than was strictly necessary, her thoughts moving ahead of her as she descended the staircase.
The house felt different in the morning, quieter in a way that spoke not of emptiness but of restraint.
Every movement seemed measured, every sound subdued, as though the walls themselves had learned to hold their breath.
By the time she reached the breakfast room, a tray had already been set.
The silver gleamed, the tea steamed gently, and the arrangement was as precise as everything else she had seen in the manor thus far.
Yet the chair opposite remained empty, and the absence drew her attention more than the meal itself.
“Has the Duke already begun his day’s work?” she asked, turning to the butler who stood at a respectful distance.
“He has, Your Grace,” the man replied. “He is in his study.”
Arabella hesitated only briefly before making her decision. “Then have my breakfast brought there as well,” she said. “I will join him.”
There was the faintest pause, so slight it might have gone unnoticed by anyone less attentive. “As you wish, Your Grace.”
She inclined her head, satisfied, and turned toward the corridor that led deeper into the house.
If Maxwell believed that he might continue as he had before, separate and distant, then he would soon learn otherwise.
Marriage, even one born of necessity, did not lend itself to avoidance, and she had no intention of being set aside like an afterthought.
As she walked, her gaze moved over the details she had not properly taken in the day before.
The walls were lined with paintings that leaned more toward somber landscapes than the bright portraits she had grown accustomed to.
The carpets softened her steps, their patterns intricate but subdued.
Even the light seemed different here, filtered through heavy drapery that allowed only what was necessary to enter.
“Poppet?” she called softly as she passed an open doorway, peering inside. The room beyond was empty, its furnishings neat and untouched. “Where have you gone, you troublesome creature?”
There was no answering sound, and Arabella allowed herself a small sigh before continuing on. “Very well,” she murmured under her breath. “You will come when you please, as always.”
The door to the study stood closed at the end of the corridor, its dark wood polished to a quiet sheen.
Arabella paused before it, smoothing her skirts with one hand as she gathered herself.
The memory of the night before lingered still, not unpleasant but unsettling in its persistence, and she drew in a steadying breath before lifting her hand to knock.
She did not wait long after the sound echoed through the room beyond. Pushing the door open, she stepped inside.
For a moment, she simply stood there.
The study was unlike any other room she had seen in the house.
Where the others had felt curated, composed to a standard of quiet perfection, this space bore the unmistakable signs of use.
Papers were stacked in careful but visible arrangements across a large desk.
Books lined the walls, some neatly shelved, others left open as though they had been consulted and set aside with the expectation of return.
A faint scent of ink and leather hung in the air, grounding the room in something tangible, something lived.
It was also, she noticed, quite dark.
Heavy curtains had been drawn across the windows, allowing only narrow streams of light to cut through the dimness. The effect cast the room in shadow, the corners softened, the details revealed only where the light chose to fall.
And at the center of it all, sprawled with complete and utter disregard for propriety, lay Poppet.
Arabella blinked once, then again, as her gaze settled on the cat stretched across the very middle of the desk, her small body draped over a stack of papers as though she had claimed them for her own. One paw hung lazily over the edge, her tail flicking with slow, deliberate contentment.
“Well,” Arabella said softly, a note of disbelief threading through her voice as she stepped further into the room, “I see you have made yourself quite at home.”
Poppet did not so much as stir.
“Your cat,” Maxwell said without looking up from the paper in his hand, “appears to have made it her singular purpose to torment me.”
Arabella did not immediately answer. She had taken a few careful steps into the room, her attention caught between the man seated behind the desk and the small, unbothered creature sprawled across his work as though she had always belonged there.
Poppet stretched languidly, as if in agreement with the accusation, and Arabella could not help the soft sound of amusement that slipped from her.
“If that is her purpose,” she replied, moving closer, “then I fear she has chosen her target well.”
Maxwell’s gaze lifted then, steady and assessing, and for a fleeting moment she wondered if she had overstepped. Yet there was no true irritation in his expression, only a quiet resignation that did not quite align with his words.
“You find this amusing,” he observed.
“I do,” she said simply. “Particularly as you have not removed her.”
He said nothing to that, though his hand shifted slightly on the desk, as if resisting the impulse to do exactly what she had pointed out. The silence stretched for a moment, not uncomfortable, but charged in a way that made Arabella aware of herself in a manner she had not been the day before.
She cleared her throat lightly. “I have asked for my breakfast to be brought here,” she said, her tone turning more measured. “If you do not object, I would like to join you.”
There it was again, that brief flicker in his gaze. Surprise, perhaps, though it was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared.
“You may,” he said.
Arabella inclined her head, though she could not help but feel as though she had secured something more than a simple permission.
She set her hands lightly against the back of a nearby chair, then glanced toward the windows, the dimness of the room pressing in on her more now that she stood within it.
“It is rather dark in here,” she murmured, half to herself, before moving toward the curtains.
She did not wait for him to stop her.
Drawing them back, she allowed the morning light to spill into the room in widening bands, illuminating the shelves, the desk, and finally him.
For a moment, she hesitated, aware of the way the light traced the line of his shoulders, the way it caught on the edge of his mask.
She expected a word of protest, some quiet command to leave the room as it had been.
None came.
When she glanced back at him, he was watching her, his expression unreadable, but he did not speak.
Arabella returned to her chair, smoothing her skirts as she sat. “That is better,” she said, as though it required no further comment.
The tray arrived shortly after, carried in with the same careful precision she had come to expect. Once they were alone again, the quiet settled between them once more, though it felt different now, thinner somehow, as though it might be broken with less effort.
Arabella reached for her teacup, her movements deliberate, though her thoughts were anything but steady.
The memory of the previous night lingered with an insistence that refused to be ignored.
She could still feel the warmth of his hands, the unfamiliar awareness that had taken hold of her, the way her body had responded before she had quite understood what was happening.
She kept her gaze lowered.
“You are avoiding me.”
The words were spoken without force, yet they cut cleanly through her careful composure. Arabella’s fingers tightened slightly around the handle of her cup before she set it down.
“I am not,” she said, though the answer came a touch too quickly.
Maxwell did not look away. “You have not met my eyes since you entered the room.”
Arabella drew in a slow breath, willing the heat from her cheeks. “If I have,” she said, lifting her chin just enough to meet his gaze, “it is because I find myself… shy.”
The word felt strange on her tongue, and yet it was the closest she could come to naming the unsettled awareness that had taken hold of her.
For a moment, he said nothing.
Then, something flashed in his expression. It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but she saw it all the same. Not amusement, not quite, but something that softened the severity she had grown accustomed to.
“I see,” he said.
The simplicity of the response did nothing to steady her. If anything, it made her more aware of the space between them, of the way the morning light now filled the room, of the quiet that seemed to press closer rather than recede.
She reached for her fork, if only to give her hands something to do. “There is something I wish to discuss with you,” she said, forcing her thoughts into more practical lines. “Now that we are in London.”
Maxwell inclined his head slightly, signaling for her to continue.
“The Season,” she said. “There will be events we are expected to attend. Dinners, musicales, assemblies. I imagine it would be… noticed if we were absent from all of them.”
“It would,” he agreed.
“And we shall attend them,” she continued, a note of quiet determination entering her voice.
His gaze sharpened, though his tone remained even. “Not all of them.”
Arabella set her fork down, her brows lifting. “You do not intend to participate in the Season?”
“I intend to fulfill what is required,” he said. “Nothing more.”
“That is not the same thing,” she returned.
“No,” he said. “It is not.”
For a moment, the familiar tension threatened to return, the edges of their conversation sharpening as they had before. Yet as Arabella held his gaze, she found herself pausing, considering him in a way she had not allowed herself to do until now.
“You do not enjoy such gatherings,” she said slowly.
“I do not.”
“And I do,” she replied.
“Yes.”
The simplicity of it settled something in her. These were not opposing forces meant to collide at every turn. They were, she realized, merely different.
“Then we shall choose,” she said after a moment. “Those that matter most. Those that cannot be avoided. And perhaps,” she added, a small hint of mischief returning, “one or two that I refuse to miss.”
Maxwell regarded her for a long moment, as though weighing the proposal.
“Very well,” he said at last. “We will attend those that are necessary. And a select few of your choosing.”
Arabella felt something ease within her, a quiet satisfaction that had nothing to do with winning and everything to do with being heard.
“I believe that is a reasonable arrangement,” she said.
“So do I.”
The tension that had hovered between them softened, not entirely gone, but altered into something less rigid, more uncertain.
It was only then that Arabella noticed the quiet, steady sound that had gone unremarked until now.
She glanced down.
Poppet, who had abandoned the desk at some point during their conversation, now lay curled comfortably in Maxwell’s lap, her small body rising and falling with each contented breath. One of his hands rested absently against her back, his fingers moving in slow, unconscious strokes through her fur.
Arabella stilled.
“You have been petting her,” she said.
Maxwell’s hand paused. He looked down, as though only now aware of what he had been doing.
“She moved,” he said, after a moment. “I did not remove her.”
“No,” Arabella replied softly. “You did not.”
Poppet purred louder, pressing further into his touch as though in agreement.
Arabella felt a warmth settle in her chest, quiet but steady, and she even allowed herself to think that perhaps this marriage would not be quite as unbearable as she had first imagined.
She lifted her gaze back to him, ready to speak again, when a knock sounded sharply at the door.